<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
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Lesson for the Month of Eeyore</title><link rel="stylesheet"
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content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body>Aspaqlaria has posted a new
item, '<a href="https://www.aishdas.org/asp/selfless-eeyore">A Lesson for the
Month of Eeyore</a>'<br>
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<p>You may have seen the Tao of Pooh and the Te of Piglet, but have you
thought about the Selflessness of Eeyore?</p>
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<p>Eeyore is most famous for being depressed. If there is something wrong with
the situation, he’ll find it. And Ralph Wright (the first actor to play
him for Disney) gave him that constant mournful singsong speaking voice.
When Piglet wishes him, “Good morning!” Eeyore replies,
“Well, I suppose it is…for some.” To a large extent he makes
his own bad luck. He makes a house out of sticks ready to fall down, and when
it does, he makes the exact same rickety structure again. As Winnie the Pooh
put it in the recent Christopher Robbin movie, “What a gloomy, rainy,
day! Pity Eeyore isn’t here to enjoy it!”</p>
<p>And yet Eeyore is also one of the most giving creatures in the Hundred Acre
Wood.</p>
<p>When Eeyore loses his tail, Pooh, of course, helpfully offers to search for
it. They get to Owl’s house, which is sporting a new bell for visitors
to announce themselves. Owl had to show off the bell-rope, which he had just
found. The bell-rope, “Looks familiar…” If it weren’t
for Pooh, Owl would still have that new bell rope yet. At least in the Disney
version, Pooh had to argue Eeyore into taking it back!</p>
<p>Eeyore doesn’t expect anything from the universe but misfortune, and
so when someone else needs something, he asks like naturally they deserve it
more.</p>
<p>He is selfless.</p>
<p>Rav Shimon Shkop is not a fan of selfless giving, as he writes at length in
the introduction to Shaarei Yosher (see <a
href="https://www.aishdas.org/asp/widen-your-tent" class="aioseop-link">Widen
Your Tent</a> pg <a href="http://www.aishdas.org/asp/ShaareiYosher.pdf#page=9"
class="aioseop-link">50-54</a> for the text with translation, and chapter 4
for analysis, discussion and extrapolation).</p>
<p>Hashem’s holiness, which Rav Shimon defines as a commitment and
consecration to provide benefit for others, is indeed Selfless. But Hashem has
no needs. We are not like that. The verse says “<em>Qedoshim tihyu ki
Qadosh Ani, Ani Hashem</em> — Be holy for I Am Holy; I Am Hashem”.
Which the <em>medrash </em>explains that while we are supposed to emulate
Hashem’s Holiness, at the end over everything, “<em>Ani
Hashem</em>” — Hashem’s Holiness will be qualitatively
“above” ours.</p>
<p>Chapter 4 of <a href="https://www.aishdas.org/asp/widen-your-tent"
class="aioseop-link">Widen Your Tent</a> explores these idea in more
depth.</p>
<p>We need self-love and self interest in order to be motivated to produce. It
is because, as the sages put it, “a person prefers one <em>kav</em> (a
measure) of his own making than 9 kav of others'” that we are driven to
make. So that if giving starts with self-love, in the end we have more to
give.</p>
<p>This is why, Rav Shimon explains, Hillel describes the law of empathy in
the negative, “What you loathe, don’t do to others”. Because
in the positive, it’s appropriate and healthy to give to oneself.
Similarly we follow Rabbi Aqiva’s ruling that if you own a canteen of
water that is only enough to keep one person alive, you are not obligated to
share it with another.</p>
<p>“<em>Ve’ahavta lereiakha kamokha</em> — Love your friend
like yourself.” We don’t give out of selflessness, but out of
<em>Chessed</em> / Lovingkingdness. That self-love is grown so that it
includes others. As discussed in the next part of Rav Shimon’s
introduction (and ch. 5 of <a
href="https://www.aishdas.org/asp/widen-your-tent" class="aioseop-link">Widen
Your Tent</a>), this is how it’s easier to give to my wife than a
stranger, to sacrifice for my own children more than others, and can be
generous out of love. The whole measure of a human soul is how many people are
included when they say the word “I”.</p>
<p>Eeyore isn’t giving out of <em>Chessed </em>/ Lovingkindness, a
desire to share his own happiness with the people (and animals) he feels
connected to. He is putting himself last. He is perpetually gloomy and
expecting the worst. And he consequently has less to share with them.</p>
<p>Don’t be Eeyore. Love yourself, And then, “love your neighbor
like yourself.”</p>
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href="https://www.aishdas.org/asp/selfless-eeyore">https://www.aishdas.org/asp/selfless-eeyore</a><br>
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